Good bye long queues: Gadkari plans easy pay at 350 toll plazas

You will soon be able to zip past select highway toll plazas across the country by December, ifMinister for Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari has his way.

The minister who spoke at the SIAM Annual Convention today said as many as350 toll points will enable you to pay and get a chip installed, which will spare youfrompaying toll each time.

Hespoke about another interesting concept: construction of weighing bridges on every toll road.This is expected tocheck overloading by commercial vehicles, with all data reaching RTOs through satellite communication. Any overloading beyond 10 percent of the prescribed limit will attract a stiff penalty for the truck owner.

Nitin Gadkari. AFP

Plans are also being drawn upto set uproadside amenities centres for truck drivers every 50 km on national highways with restaurant and restroom facilities.

The all new Motor Vehicles Act should be up for comments and stakeholder discussion by tomorrow morning, he said. It envisages measures such as three times the current penalty (fine) for traffic violations, no visits to the Regional Transport Offices for getting your driving license and cancellation of license on certain number of repeat offences.

The new MV Act should be tabled in Parliament in the next session. It will also probably contain norms for e-rickshaws which were banned by the courts unless a proper law was in place to govern issues such as weight and safety parameters. It is not clear whether the new act will say anything on quadricycles.

Speaking aboutat the need for massive impetus to building roads across the country and improving the condition of existing ones,hesaid Rs 2 lakh crore worth of infrastructure projects will be launched by the government this year.He said India sees about 5 lakh accidents every year and about 1.5 lakh people perish on our roads.

The minister quoted an example given to him by the National Highways Authority of India where its officials said bridges and underpasses were removed by some road developers to increase vehicle speeds and also their internal rate of return on investments. He said this approach to road building and indeed to road safety needs to be completely abolished and instead road projects should incorporate all safety features for pedestrians and vehicles.

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